Lost and Found

Yesterday this little dog showed up at our front patio. He was wearing a cone over his head and he smelled bad! Duncan even said, "Mommy, doggie very smelly." We did not know who he belonged to, so Doug put a temporary leash ( a piece of string) on him and tied him to a tree with a dog house next to him.

This morning Doug went to check on the dog and he was gone. The leash was there and it looked like somebody had removed the leash from him. We think that the dog belongs to our next door neighbour even though we had never seen the dog around before. I am happy that his owner found him because we were thinking of putting Dog Found posters all over the neighborhood.

Never Forget

Six years on, and the horror of that day has not diminished. I remember that day very well. When I woke up that Tuesday morning in 2001, I turned on the radio and there was a live coverage about the twin towers having been hit by two planes. I quickly turned on the TV and I was so shocked that all I could do was sit on my bed and watched the horror unfold on TV. The collapse of the two towers was all there on TV and I watched it live. It was unbelievable. It was a black day indeed.

I will never ever forget that day. I will never ever forget the enemy who perpetrated that horror.

Ne Obliviscaris!

Brocade bag with trim

I made this bag to match the dress that I was wearing to Monica and Oscar's wedding. A lady who was sitting at my table asked me where I found the bag to match my dress. I made it myself, I said, and so is the dress I am wearing! :-)

I made the bag the morning of the wedding, and I did not have the pink boa for the trim. I only added the pink boa later after I found it at the local Joann store. I think the boa trim makes the bag look classy. I will use more boa trims for future projects! In fact I have a piece of brown moleskin fabric that I'd like to make with brown boa trim, but I just can't seem to find brown boa. I think I'll go ahead and make the bag and add the trim later.

Paper Craft

I was at a paper craft session at the Galt Library last Saturday. I do some scrap booking but it is one of my neglected hobbies. Making cards is a bit like scrap booking because the materials you use in scrap booking are the same ones you use in card making.

Other than recycling old Christmas cards and pasting them onto new cards, I have never made any creative cards. The paper craft class at the library was free and I signed up for the class quite some time ago. The lady who taught was an English lady. Her husband was there to assist her. There were ten ladies and one guy in the class. It was a fun class and not at all complicated.

We made three cards and here are the cards I made.

Cell Phones Should Be Kept Away From Hospital Beds

My father was hospitalized for about a week in December last year. While in hospital he had his cell phone with him. The policy of the General Hospital in Miri was that no cell phone should be charged using any of the electrical outlets by the hospital beds. My father ignored the "no charging" advice! :-) His reason- How do you expect me to receive calls from my family or make calls to them if my phone's battery is dead?!

Anyway the good thing about his stay at that particular ward in the hospital was that none of the patients there was hooked up to any machines that might be affected by possible interferences emitted by the cell phones.

There are good reasons not to have cell phones by hospital beds.

Science Daily — Cell phones should come no closer than one meter to hospital beds and equipment, according Dutch research published in the online open access journal, Critical Care. Scientists demonstrated that incidents of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from second and third generation mobile phones occurred even at distance of three meters.

In this particular study, the research team examined the effects of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) signals on critical care equipment such as ventilators and pacemakers. Almost 50 EMI incidents were recorded; 75% were significant or hazardous. Hazardous incidents varied from a total switch off and restart of mechanical ventilator and complete stops without alarms in syringe pumps to incorrect pulsing by an external pacemaker.

The second generation (2.5G) GPRS signal caused the highest number of EMI incidents at over 60% whereas the third generation (3G) UMTS signal was responsible for just 13%. EMI incidents also occurred a greater distance with GPRS with a hazardous incident even at three meters.

While first generation mobile phones are used mainly for voice transmission, 2.5G and 3G phones enable internet access, sending and receiving data. They entered the market, however, with little proof regarding their safe use in the medical environment.

Dr Erik van Lieshout, lead researcher from the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, said; "Our work has real implications for present hospital restrictions of mobile phone use in patient areas."

"It is unlikely that mobile phone induced EMI in hospitals will be eradicated in the near future so the one meter rule currently in place should continue, as it is relatively safe," commented Dr van Lieshout.

Article: "Interference by new generations mobile phones on critical care medical equipment," Erik Jan van Lieshout, Sabine N van der Veer, Reinout Hensbroek, Johanna C Korevaar, Margreeth B Vroom and Marcus J Schultz, Critical Care (in press)

Paid!

I have been writing paid posts for PayPerPost for slightly over a month now and I have started receiving payments for the stuff I've written. Simply fabulous! :-) You get paid for posts that have been approved 30 days after you have submitted them.

I have not been fortunate enough to have snagged any opportunity that is worth at least $50 that I qualified for. :-( The best I have done so far was a $30 opportunity and that post have been approved. So now I am waiting for the the 30 days to be up before I receive payment for it.

I used to just take whatever opportunity was available but now I am more discriminating. I refuse to take a $5 opportunity where I am required to write 300 words. Nah, I'll pass. However if the requirement is for a minimum of 50 words or a 100 words I'll take it provided I can write about the subject matter.

I love making some money through blogging! :-) I haven't done all that well with my Google Ads though. I don't think I have made more than $20 since I started placing ads on my blogs. Hopefully as time goes by, it'll get better!

Are you making money from your blogging activity?

Argue With Everyone Political Forums

Thomas Jefferson is supposed to have said, "Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics." That is good advice but there are many of us who just can't help voicing our views, and in fact enjoy arguing with others, on whatever the political subject of the day is.

At ArgueWithEveryone.com Political Forums you can argue to your hearts content. The forums there are generally unmoderated and that means you do not have to fear that your views will be censored. You can bring up subjects like the stem cell research debate, or tell everyone why you love being a liberal, or give your views on Senator Schumer's comment about the incompetence of our soldiers in Iraq.

Go and register as a user at ArgueWithEveryone.com and participate in the forums, instead of ranting at the liberal or conservative talk radio hosts!

Sunflowers

This year we planted three sunflowers. I never realized how tall they can grow. No wonder I see a lot of sky in the background when I see sunflower pictures!

Ever since they bloomed, Duncan would say, "I see the sunflowers, Mommy," every morning as we get into the car to go to school.

It has been about a couple of weeks since they bloomed so now the flowers are drooping, and I think I should do something about trying to get the seeds out of them for replanting next year.

Rojak Sotong Kangkong

It is that time of the year where you can get kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica) at the Asian grocery stores and even at the produce market on Flea Market Day here in Galt.

Besides the usual belacan kangkong, I usually make rojak sotong kangkong with some fried tauhu thrown in. The rojak paste I used is Made in Penang, available at the Asian grocery store here in Sacramento. The squid is also available at the frozen section of the Asian supermarket.

When I am able to get all the ingredients for a certain dish here, I get to enjoy some of the foods I enjoy back home in Malaysia. :-)

Star Muscle - Celebrity Gossip

If you are one of those people who loves to follow Celebrity Gossip, then you will love Star Muscle. At StarMuscle.com you won't find the run-off-the-mill gossip on your favorite celebrities. You will get the news, the videos, the gossip, and the lies. Lies? Yep, lies, out and out lies! The site is 100% free and do check it out. The following Press Release gives you all the information you need to know about the new celebrity gossip site.


Press Release:

Welcome to Starmuscle.com, your backdoor into Dirty Hollywood. Star Muscle is a 100% Free site. I know every website says that’s its Free, then they lie to your face, well not me and not here. You are going to get the very best and worst: Star News, Star Gossip, Celebrity Speculations, Celebrity Death Pool, Star Misfortunes, Satire, Comedy, and Out and Out LIES! You are going to get a very unique spin on Hollywood news and even be able to read what your favorite celebrities are thinking, but TOO SCARED to say. If there is a wardrobe malfunction, Starmuscle will be there. If a nipple seems to pop out at just the wrong time…..you’ll see a closeup of it right here.

So why the name Starmuscle.com? Simple….all the good domain names have been taken and this crappy one was left over. I still have to come up with a catch phrase I guess, like “Flex your Star Muscle”; maybe “Show me the star muscle”; or even “Star Muscle - Paparazzi on Steroids”. The more I think about it, the more cheesy it gets. Let starmuscle.com mean anything you want, as long as it keeps you coming back.

I hope you enjoy this website and please don’t spam the comments with useless affiliate links or self-serving links to your websites. We want to keep this site SPAM-FREE and also advertisement FREE for at least one year. This website is rated PG-13 with crude humor, drug references, racial sarcasm, vulgarity, and mild nudity. Please tell all your friends and family that are over the age of 16 to Add it to your favorites and keep coming back.

My name is Zack and you will get a free one way ticket into my twisted brain. I’ll admit it’s scary, but it is a fun ride. I hope you will laugh, cry, and enjoy trashing these spoiled, overpaid, celebrities and help bring them back down to mother earth.

Beverly's Quilt

Beverly was one of my regular quilting clients. She used to come to my place to drop off some quilts with about three or four other ladies. She was the most spritely looking of them all and was the driver of the van that they drove in to get to my place.

Last Wednesday, I received a phone call from her son-in-law. Beverly passed away last Monday of pancreatic cancer. I was saddened to hear the news because just this past week, I'd been thinking about this group of ladies.

Beverly had a couple of quilts that she had completed before her passing and one of them was for a son who was living in Texas. The son-in-law wondered if I would be able to finish off the quilt quickly so that the son could bring it back with him to Texas after the funeral. Of course I said sure, and told him to bring the quilt as soon as possible. That same day one of the ladies who had been to my place with Beverly came by and dropped off the quilt.

I finished machine quilting the quilt yesterday and left a message with the lady who dropped it off. Later in the day I received a call from a gentleman - I didn't quite get the relationship this man had with Beverly - and he said he would come by to pick up the quilt tomorrow, Saturday. I told him the quilt still needed to be bound. Maybe one of Beverly's friends could do it?

But after the call, I began thinking that maybe there wouldn't be enough time for anyone to bind the quilt in time for the son's trip home to Texas. So this morning I went ahead and did the binding on the quilt. That's the very least I could do for Beverly. I won't be receiving any more quilts from her. :-(

Tagged

Here is the tag :- Ten Questions

These are the rules :-Five answers to each question and then tagged five others.

Instructions :- Remove the first Blog and add your own blog last.

A Great Pleasure; Wishing On A Falling Star; Bokjae; simply888here; cat cat; Puteri's Musings 3



Here it goes.....


Q1. What were you doing 10 Years ago?

1. I was working in Vietnam.
2. I visited places in Vietnam with a handsome young Frenchman.
3. I watched Princess Diana's funeral on TV at the Guest House at the Hanoi Agricultural University campus.
4. I went on a boat trip down the Perfume River in Hue, Vietnam.
5. I visited Ho Chi Minh City for the first time.

Q2. What were you doing 1 Year ago?

1. I was spending too much time in front of my computer.
2. I drove my kids to daycare at 9.00 a.m. from Mon-Fri.
3. I picked up my kids at 5.00 p.m. from daycare from Mon-Fri.
4. I spent too much money on items for my hobbies.
5. We celebrated Doug's 50th birthday at his parents' house.

Q3. What are 5 snacks you enjoy?

1. Potato Chips
2. Cashew nuts
3. Low Sodium Wheat Thins
4. Nestle 3 in 1 Cereal
5. Dried Fruit

Q4. What are 5 songs you know the lyrics to?

1. Eternal Flame
2. Silent Night
3. Away in a Manger
4. London Bridge is Falling Down
5. Ring Around the Roses

Q5. 5 things you would do if you are a Millionaire?

1. Pay off any loans.
2. Buy myself the latest model Mercedes Benz.
3. Stay at the fanciest hotels while visiting Europe.
4. Live in a bigger and fancier house with a landscaped English garden.
5. Buy my parents a new house.

Q6. 5 Bad habits?

1. I like to pick at my teeth in front of people after a meal. Gross!
2. I don't wipe my sink faucet dry.
3. I spend too much time in front of my pc.
4. I let my laundry pile up before I put them in the washer.
5. I let Doug's clothes pile up before I iron them.

Q7. 5 things you like to do?

1. Spend time in front of my computer.
2. Eat out.
3. Sleep in.
4. Shop for shoes.
5. Go for a pedicure.

Q8. 5 Favourite Toys?

1. My laptop
2. My digital camera
3. My iPod
4. My cell phone
5. My massage chair

Q9. 5 things you would never wear?

1. Thick make up
2. Thongs
3. See through underwear
4. Red lipstick
5. My bra to bed

Q10. 5 things you hate to do?

1. House work
2. Cook dinner
3. Go out on a really hot day
4. Wash my car
5. Exercise

I now tag:

Cokelatrawkz
Chantique79
Feli
Nightwing
Macyln

Bitter Melon Tea Part 2

I started drinking bitter melon tea because it is supposed to help lower your blood sugar level. I have been drinking it almost every day since I first bought it.

One wonderful effect I discovered from drinking the tea is that it helps me sleep! I suffer from insomnia and I find that each time after I've drunk a cup of the bitter melon tea, I would start yawning and my eyelids would feel heavy! This is wonderful! I don't know what else is in the tea bag besides bitter melon. Maybe there are lotus seeds in there because I smell something like lotus seeds in the tea.

Many years ago, a Vietnamese friend got me a bag of lotus seeds tea. It did help me sleep but it had a negative effect on my stomach. I had gastritis and it made my condition worse so I stopped taking it. Actually tea has that effect on me, that is why I drink my bitter melon tea after a meal or after I've taken a snack.

If you suffer from insomnia, try drinking bitter melon tea. The tea is not bitter at all despite the name! In fact is reminds me of "liang teh". Err, what exactly is "liang teh"? I love that tea too!

Too much TV may cause attention problems

I better cut down on the TV time my kids enjoy right now! I know it is bad, but the TV has been used to keep them occupied. :-( However, I am glad to notice that if either I or Doug is outside the kids love to be outside too ... riding their tricycles or driving around in their motorized vehicle and chasing the geese!

Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The roughly 40 percent increase in attention problems among heavy TV viewers was observed in both boys and girls, and was independent of whether a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was made prior to adolescence.

The link was established by a long-term study of the habits and behaviors of more than 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973.

The children aged 5 to 11 watched an average of 2.05 hours of weekday television. From age 13 to 15, time spent in front of the tube rose to an average of 3.1 hours a day.

"Those who watched more than two hours, and particularly those who watched more than three hours, of television per day during childhood had above-average symptoms of attention problems in adolescence," Carl Landhuis of the University of Otago in Dunedin wrote in his report, published in the journal Pediatrics.

Read the rest of this article here.

Some people have all the luck!

How come, ah, some people have all the luck? In my lifetime I can only remember winning one lucky draw ticket. I won a small TV set. I have never won anything else.

Can you imagine winning the Lotto jackpot twice? The odds of winning it twice is
22.5 million to one. I always say that I will buy a lottery ticket if the jackpot is over 100 million, but I never do. So how to win anything if I never even buy a ticket?! :-)

NEW YORK (AP) — How lucky can you get?

Adeline and Eugene Angelo won $5 million Thursday after buying the winning ticket in last week's New York Lotto. In 1996, they won $2.5 million after splitting a $10 million jackpot with three other people.

Eugene Angelo, 81, said he and his wife would share their new fortune with their three sons and their families. Taking the lump-sum payment of $2.5 million, Eugene and Adeline and each of their sons will get about $513,000 before taxes.

"We're a little older, a little wiser and there are a few more of us, when you count the grandkids," Eugene Angelo said. "We're still the same old people. Still very excited. It's a great feeling."

Adeline Angelo, 74, a retired medical secretary, said she hoped the new money will "buy us good health and longevity."

Me Not Like You, Mommy

My kids are 4 years old and already one knows how to say, "Me not like you, Mommy!" Ok, at least he hasn't learned how to say, "I hate you, Mommy!"

He tells me that when he doesn't get what he wants. He's always asking for a toy, or for the TV to be turned on to a certain channel and when he doesn't get what he wants, he goes off in a huff and tells me or his daddy, "Me not like you!"

I know he doesn't mean it, so I tell him, "I still love you, Duncan, even if you don't like me". :-)
Later in the day, he will tell me, "Me love you, Mommy'. These are words that a parent treasures because a child says those words often without encouragement and means them.

The following is a parenting tip that I find useful.

When Kids say, "I hate you!"

By Elizabeth Pantley, Author of Perfect Parenting and Kid Cooperation

Question:
When my son gets angry with me he yells, "I hate you! I wish you weren't my mother!" and other hurtful things. It really disturbs me, but I don't know how to respond.

Think about it:
When children feel angry and powerless, they sometimes resort to hateful words to express their feelings. These outbursts should not be taken at face value. In other words, your child doesn't really mean he hates you - he means he's extremely angry that he can't have his way, and you're the one imposing the rules! These reasons don't mean you should tolerate the behavior. But, when you look at it this way, you can temper your own emotions so that you can take control of the situation.

Teach:
Children need to be taught that it is okay to have angry feelings, but that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to express their anger. It's usually best to walk away from a child who uses such strong language after making a short parting comment, "I won't stay and listen to you talk like that." Allow some time to pass so that both you and the child can calm down. Then, tell your child that his outburst was unacceptable. Instead of simply telling your child what you don't want, teach what alternatives you will allow, such as, "I'm really mad at you for saying no."

Respond calmly:
If this is an unusual behavior for your normally respectful child, you might want to respond in a calm manner, "That language is unacceptable. I know you're smart enough to come up with an acceptable alternative."

Find the source:
Determine if your child is hearing someone else talk this way, perhaps a friend. Talk about this person's behavior and ask your child what he thinks of it. This is a good time to have a chat about the power and meaning of words, what you feel is acceptable, and what you will accept as alternatives to hurtful comments.

Be firm:
Let your child know in advance that if he uses those kinds of expressions with you he'll be restricted to his room. The length of time would be determined by the intensity of the words, for example, "I hate you!" might warrant a one-hour solitary confinement. Swearing at you in a verbally aggressive way would warrant spending the remaining day in his room. Should he not follow orders and go to his room when asked he'll lose a specific privilege (such as watching TV, talking on the phone, or going outside after school). Once you've set the limits, be calm and consistent when enforcing them.

Excerpted with permission by NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group Inc. from Perfect Parenting, The Dictionary of 1,000 Parenting Tips by Elizabeth Pantley, © 1999

Mixed Marriages

I find the following story really interesting because I hadn't actually thought about it the way the author of the article said it. Is it true that Malaysian's Malay politicians are saying, " ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ when it comes to marriage"?

What stands out to me in that story is how many of our Malay politicians are not pure Malay, and yet to hear them speak about the Malay race you would think they are 100% pure blooded Malay! I didn't know that Tun Mahathir was once classified as Indian. Hishamuddin Hussein of the keris wielding fame has Turkish blood.

Malaysia’s Malay leaders say ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ when it comes to marriage

In early June, the Malaysian media blossomed with pictures of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in the traditional Malay suap-menyuap ceremony, exchanging bites of colored glutinous rice with his new bride.

This low-key but high-profile wedding followed another elite ceremony in May when one of Malaysia’s most eligible bachelors, the Raja Muda (crown prince) of Perak, Dr Raja Nazrin Shah, finally got hitched at the age of 50 in an unostentatious ceremony in Kuala Kangsar.

But these two weddings had something else in common, a characteristic not much commented on in the media but clear to most Malaysians: in both cases the brides were locally-born Eurasians. The prime minister’s new wife is Jeanne Abdullah, a friend and relative of Abdullah Badawi’s late wife, Endon, who died of complications from breast cancer in October 2005. Jeanne had originally been Jean Danker, a Catholic from a Eurasian family which spans Malaysia and Singapore and who converted to Islam when she married her first husband, Endon’s brother Othman, from whom she was later divorced.

The bride of Oxford and Harvard-educated Raja Nazrin, son of the current Perak Sultan, who himself was formerly Malaysia’s top law official, is Zara Salim Davidson, a chemical engineer and the daughter of William Davidson, a British-born Ipoh lawyer and his Malay wife. She herself is a member of the Kedah royal house and thus related to Malaysia’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Raja Nazrin has repeatedly spoken out against racism in Malaysia. Zara considers herself to be very much a Malay despite her Eurasian blood.

These weddings thus represent what should be one of the triumphs of Malaysia its ability to break down racial and religious barriers and subsume them into a broader Malaysian identity. Unfortunately the elite all too often fails to preach what it actually practices. It is a one-way street. Marry a Malay and you will become a Malay. You will also become a Muslim and, the courts say, you will stay that way.

The good-natured Abdullah Badawi clearly has no problem with the mixed racial ancestry of his bride, or with the fact that she was baptised a Christian. Yet he heads a ruling party which is not merely race-based but at times makes a fetish of Malay racial purity. And he heads a government that supports the recent court decision refusing to allow a Muslim to become a Christian, an act of supposed apostasy. But in the eyes of some Christian fundamentalists, the gentle Jeanne is also an apostate for having forsaken Christianity.

Malays are not the only ones with identity problems. Scratch many a Malaysian Chinese and one may also find a strain of Chinese chauvinism, as is often the case in Singapore. But in Malaysia it is the Malay elite which sets the tone. This is why many believe that a more open recognition of the sheer diversity of Malaysians’ origins would help offset the divisions caused by race-based politics that identifies religion with race.

Just a brief look at the origins of many members of the elite gives the lie to ethnic purity and religious dogmatism. There is Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister. His father was a Muslim Malayali from Kerala in south India who migrated to Malaysia and took a Malay bride. Mahathir himself was classified as an Indian when at university in Singapore.

But instead of celebrating the upward mobility that Malaysia offered to this migrant from India, the politics of the United Malays National Organisation required Mahathir to bury his ethnic past and wear his acquired Malay identity on his sleeve. In reality Mahathir welcomes racial mingling. His son Mirzan married into the family of Indonesian Chinese tycoon Liem Sioe Liong, and daughter Marina’s first husband was European.

The current head of the UMNO youth, Hishamuddin Hussein, who waved a kris (Malay dagger) at last year’s national UMNO convention and offered to bathe it in Chinese blood to the ominous cheers of the audience, is another whose Malay roots are not as deep as often assumed. His grandfather, the founder of UMNO, Onn Jaafar, appeared to be a Caucasian, which was not surprising given that his Johor-based family was of Turkish origin. Onn was ejected from the party he founded because he wanted to make it multi-racial and though his son went on to become the head of UMNO and a prime minister, he carried with him his father’s inclusive and moderate instincts.

Onn lost out politically to Malaysia’ s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Although the Tunku placed more emphasis on Malay identity, he was certainly no exclusivist. Indeed, he had been born a subject of the King of Siam and as a scion of the royal house of Kedah spent some of his early years in Bangkok at the court of his then sovereign. His mother was Siamese, though her family originally was from Pegu (Burma). Of his four wives, one was Thai Chinese, one English, one Malay and one Malaysian-Chinese. He never hid his fondness for whisky, even while heading the Organization of Islamic Conference, or his student days in England pre-occupied, as he once put it, with “fast women, fast cars and not-so-fast horses.”

The Malay aristocracy has anyway been quite catholic in its choice of brides. Those in mixed marriagesinclude Ahmad Shah, the Sultan of Pahang, whose consort is of Pakistani lineage. The Sultan of Selangor’s divorced second consort and mother of his heir apparent was an American citizen.

Sultan Iskandar of Johor’s first wife, the mother of his heir apparent, was a British woman, Josephine Trevorrow. In this respect Sultan Iskandar took after his own grandfather, Sultan Ibrahim, who had two European wives, one British, one Romanian.

Maybe it is Johor’s geography, its proximity to Singapore and the diversity of Indonesia, but its politicians seem to thrive on marrying outsiders. Former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam’s first wife was from (Catholic) Latin America and his second was of mixed ancestry . Another Johor politician, Tun Ismail, deputy prime minister in the early 1970s, was of part Chinese ancestry.

Conversions of convenience to Islam often mean that Malay mixtures leave little trace compared with other cross-ethnic marriages. But the non-Malay, but Muslim, origins of many of the elite are found everywhere, from South Asia, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and other countries. They include the likes of Zeti Aziz, the governor of Bank Negara. She is the daughter of Ungku Aziz, the European-looking former University of Malaya vice-chancellor, whose Johor-based family came from Turkey.

Chinese roots are also more real than apparent, often hidden by conversions. But relatively recent high-profile marriages to Chinese include Tengku Razaleigh, former finance minister and a member of the Kelantan royal house who married a long-time Chinese friend who converted and changed her name to Noor Abdullah. Rashid Hussein, the prominent Singapore-born, Anglophile financier whose father was Indian and mother Malay married Sue Kuok, a daughter of tycoon Robert Kuok Hock Nian, the Malaysian-born but now Hong Kong-based tycoon. Kuok’s first wife and mother of some of his children was Eurasian but he later married a Chinese and emphasized his Chinese ethnic identity. In a recent book, “Asian Godfathers” Kuok was described by an in-law as “the biggest racial bigot I have ever met.”

Among the non-Malay groups, inter-ethnic marriages are generally much more common than among Malays. However it also seems the case that migration is the preferred option for the numbers of Malaysians who either marry across ethnic lines or acquire foreign spouses while studying or working abroad. This particularly applies to Malay women who are either not particularly religious or who see no reason why their spouses should convert.

By one estimate, there are some 150,000 mixed marriages in Malaysia, a number that seems impossibly small in a population of 24 million. The leafy, winding streets of Damansara Heights and Kenny Hills abound with matrons who entered into marriage and lives of leisure with well-to-do Malays straight out of the universities of England, where the government had sent their mates. It is forbidden for a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim, so these women, with their servants and their huge homes, stop being Jean and become Jehan in public, although seldom in private.

But while the list of Malay elites is long and rich with instances of intermarriage, at the lower economic levels the list is short, and increasingly circumscribed by the growing power of Malaysia’s shariah, or Islamic religious courts. The issue was brought to the fore in the case of Lina Joy, who changed her name from Azlina Jailani and became a Catholic in an effort to marry a non-Muslim.

With scores, perhaps hundreds, of outraged Muslims outside the courtroom, demanding that she be denied the chance to change her religion on her identity card, a high court ruled in May that she was subject to the jurisdiction of the shariah court. The shariah courts have allowed one conversion in history – for a woman who had been dead for decades.

The result is that either people do not marry, or they emigrate. Bright women who have preferred to marry foreigners found their husbands denied work permits. There are believed to be thousands living in Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom.

For Malaysia’s young to take their cues from Malaysia’s top politicians and the cream of society outside of official policy might not be a bad idea. Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, the Director of the Institute of the Malay World Civilisation (ATMA) and Professor at University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi – and himself married to an Australian, says Abdullah Badawi’s marriage to Jean Danker Abdullah is “not a catalyst but certainly symbolic.”

Marina Mahathir told Asia Sentinel that “If people think that marrying into another culture is enriching, then it will be a good thing. But some people make one person give up their own culture because they think of it as inferior.”

But so long as the elite indulges in kris-waving while marrying as it pleases, multiracial nation-building may have scant grass roots impact.

Blog Day 2007

Today is BlogDay. On BlogDay I am supposed to find 5 new blogs that I find interesting.

One blog that I discovered recently, and found really interesting is Moonlight and Roses. The blog author goes by the name of U.Lee and his blog is filled with stories of his past. I was especially moved to tears by his story of a certain woman who went back to Malaysia to look for her mother after not having seen her for about 30 years. It was a moving story with a happy ending.

Another new blog I find interesting is written by a young mother who only just started blogging. Her blog is called Asiana. She writes about her family, and her personal experiences like the day she went for a job intereview with a private radio station for the post of a DJ. She never got the job because she froze and didn't know what to say to the GM when interviewed by him, despite having passed the voice test and could actually talk very well in the radio announcer's booth. :-)

The third blog I'd like to share here belongs to a group of people who call themselves the Kuala Lumpur Lunyung Club. I always enjoy looking at the pictures of the activities they have done together. They are a close knit group bound together by their cultural heritage and the need to come together while living in the big city.

The next blog is by Rita Ho called I'm making notes. I've known Rita for a while now through a forum where Malaysians living overseas gather. I'd only recently discovered that she had a blog. Rita writes really well and her posts are always interesting and entertaining. Her latest post called 50 Reasons to Celebrate Being Malaysian is really special because it reminds me why I am proud to be a Malaysian too!

The final blog I'd like to share on BlogDay is by Daphne Ling called Aphasia Dysphasia. She works with kids with all kinds of disabilities. Her writings exude compassion, a virtue not very many of us have. Her work reminds us that there should be more of us doing this kind of volunteering work.

So these are the five blogs that I am submitting for BlogDay 2007. :-)

British Gas Launches Greenest Energy Tariff

9 August 2007: British Gas has announced it is launching two new green energy tariffs, Zero Carbon, which will be the greenest tariff available on the domestic market and Future Energy. British Gas has launched the tariffs, in response to the increasing demand for green energy products.

Householders signing up to the Zero Carbon tariff will:
• reduce their household energy carbon emissions to zero through Kyoto compliant offset schemes which will meet the new Defra requirements
• help fund a direct increase in investment in renewable energy generated in the UK
• contribute to the new British Gas green fund which will:
• invest in developing new renewable technologies such as wave power
• oversee a programme to help schools in the UK reduce their CO2 emissions

Gearóid Lane, Managing Director British Gas New Energy said,”Our new tariff responds to consumer demand for truly green energy solutions. It is essential that customers have confidence in green energy tariffs and that their credibility is not damaged by tariffs that claim to be green but in reality do not deliver any incremental environmental benefits. Green tariffs are moving from niche to mainstream products and we’re leading the industry by offering a tariff that will do more for the environment than any other product currently available.”

Under the government’s Renewables Obligation (RO), electricity suppliers in the UK are already required to produce an increasing percentage of their electricity through methods such as wind farms which, unlike traditional power plants, produce zero carbon emissions. For 2007/2008 this figure is set at 7.9%.

In a recent report, the National Consumer Council (NCC) raised concerns that some energy suppliers are packaging electricity which is produced under the RO scheme as “green”, yet it delivers no additional environmental benefits. The NCC called on energy suppliers to take steps beyond their legal requirements and offer green energy tariffs that provide genuine additional environmental benefits, in particular CO2 emissions reduction.

British Gas worked with Global Action Plan and The Climate Group’s “We’re in this Together” campaign to develop Zero Carbon which goes further than any other green tariff in meeting these requirements offering consumers the only zero carbon option on the market.

The tariff carries a premium of £84 per year, reflecting the higher cost of producing energy through lower carbon emission schemes.

Virginia Graham, Chair of Global Action Plan, said, “The British Gas Zero Carbon tariff delivers on all three of the essential requirements of a green tariff which are: additionality, transparency and verifiability. As such it is a very welcome new offering in the market. Consumers signing up to the tariff can be confident that they are getting 12 per cent more renewable energy than they would otherwise have got. The carbon emissions from their electricity and gas will also be offset with emissions reductions from projects accredited by the United Nations.”

Zero Carbon is one of the first initiatives launched through the ‘We’re in this Together’ campaign, which was launched in April 07 as an alliance of some of the UK’s biggest brands who are all working to help their customers reduce their impact on the climate.

Dr Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group and founder of ‘We’re in this Together’ said, “We’re committed to offering people ways to make a real impact on climate change through Together.com. We’ve worked with British Gas to ensure that Zero Carbon is a genuine step forward in delivering more environmental benefits than any other tariff currently available.”

British Gas’s second green energy tariff, Future Energy, offers an alternative green electricity tariff at a premium of just £20 per year. Customers signing up to this tariff will contribute to a green fund which will provide solar panels and other renewable energy technologies to UK schools. Money from the fund will also be invested in development of future renewable technologies and sources.

To sign up customers can call British Gas on 0845 604 0055 or visit www.britishgas.co.uk

Face Mask: The Ultimate Weight Loss Program

Some people go for lap band surgeries to help them lose weight. Others try all kinds of diet pills or take diet supplements like Fat Burners, Hoodia or drink diet tea to try to lose weight. But there is yet another way to losing weight, and I think if followed as directed will help a person lose weight without any surgery or the taking of diet pills or supplements. I consider it the ultimate weight loss program! :-)


Patent #4344424 -

"... object of this invention is to provide a new and novel device which is worn on the head of the user for preventing the ingestion of food, which is simple and inexpensive in construction, which does not interfere with transmission of speech or breathing by the user and which may be locked in place on the user's head to prevent removal while at the same time permitting removal under emergency conditions."

Patent information can be found here.